Tony Stark: Iron Man Volume 1: Self Made Man Review

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pullback. Hello and welcome to The

Pull Bag. This is episode 355 .5. Continuing

on with more Iron Man stuff, I'm of course TF2

and Mike. Joining me is, from last episode, JT

from Saskatoon. Hello, sir. Good evening. Good

evening. And also joining us is Ryan the Uneven

-Armored Merkley. That was terrible. Yeah, well.

That was even worse than your penny joke. One

penny two penny All right, so we are here JT

and I since the pull bag pretty much started

covered most of Dan at least the end of Dan slots

kind of run through Spider -man through spider

-man He's now jumped over to Tony Stark, Iron

Man. This is volume one, Self Made Man. Creative

on this is Dan Slott on writing. Issues one through

four, the artist is Valerio Shitey. I'm going

to say Shitey instead of shitty because I don't

want to offend anybody. Color artists are Edgar

Delgado with Rochelle Rosenberg. Sorry, I thought

we were talking about your jokes when you...

Dead shitty. What was that? Uh -huh. Thank you.

I like him Yeah, yeah, yeah damn Canadians Issue

five artists are Max Dunbar and gang hook limb

the color artist on that is Donal Sanchez Al

Mara I'm gonna say right now the first four issues

were very very cool. I absolutely love them I

love Dan's voice as the writer with Tony and

all the characters that are in Iron Man's world.

Issue five threw me for a really wacky loop.

Because of the art? No, because of the story.

I was going to say, please continue. Feel free

to elaborate. No, because of the story. The art

in the entire trade is amazing. I love the art.

It's very good. I can see it's pretty busy. Admittedly,

but I generally like busy arts and the quality

doesn't drop as there's more or Things happening.

Yeah, so the art definitely works Sweet for me.

Yeah, what about you JT? How's the art work for

you? I Like again, I love the first four issues

the fifth issue with was the art on that max

Dunbar and Yeah, so my general rule, by the way,

is let Mike say the names of the artists. I said

that last week. Just butcher them. So I just

don't bother. I just refer to it as the art or

by issue. Yeah. No, the first four issues, the

art on those I really love because it's this

almost kind of like a manga sort of style. You

know, it's a lot more... I don't want to say

softer, but it seems it's more animated in a

lot of respects than compared to other artists

that have covered Iron Man. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's, you know, we start the, and we're not

going to go through this, you know, Ryan will

sum it up here in a minute, but we basically

- Me? Or JT. Because you do it better. With JT

here, we'll end up being here for four hours.

Not that that's a bad thing in certain circles,

but you have to go to bed early because you have

to get up at 4 a .m., Ryan. Uh, we basically

start off with... Okay, well... Same difference.

Um... We basically start off with 25 years ago

and a young Tony Stark. I love that Dan Slott

started out like this. I think that is super

cool. Uh, back in the day of BattleBots. Yep.

I miss watching those shows. I'm trying to figure

out how much more sophisticated they would be

now, possibly. I'm not sure. Instead of game

controllers like Tony has or actual remote controls,

they'd probably all be used by iPhones or Samsungs,

or at least the Samsungs might explode. Anyway,

so yeah, they open with the flashback. Long story

short, there's an attack from Feng Feng Foom

Man, I forget how much trouble I have with that

At least I got it right there. I'm just not gonna

say the name ever again in this podcast Finn

Feng Foom. Yeah, I have issues sometimes with

pronunciation. The worst is coin toss where I

tends to Mix it up and start start saying twain

costs randomly. Oh my god, which we used to be

annoying back when I worked in sports radio,

so Anyway, thanks enough about me. Well, there's

never enough about me, but still so one of the

classic staples of Iron Man Finn fang -fum so

the So we open with so first Well, it's important

to note that this is Iron Man being brought back

to life So this is very much a new starting point

for Iron Man and period. Right. Yeah. And yeah,

we opened with the attack from things. God damn

it. See? 3F. From that character. Just say 3F.

And it turns out he's being controlled by the

controller, which, by the way, man, I forgot

that. as bad as Gotham Girl and Gotham Boy or

whatever were, people can come up with worse

names for characters. Anyway, it turns out he's

being controlled by the controller, so there's

some follow -up from that. I'll get into it a

little later. Later on, we have the Wormac Manticore,

and we get a subplot with Rhodey. Then we have

Tony creating, working in virtual reality. So

it should be noted too that Tony very much is

the RDJ Robert Downey Jr. version. Oh yeah. And

yeah, we get some more sort of like fun stuff

in the end. The one thing I want to mention though,

so. All of the Iron Man stuff is pretty quick

to sum up. And much like a lot of Slots Spider

-Man, there's a focus on a lot of the minor characters

around Iron Man. Right. So we have issues focusing

on Rhodey. We have issues for quite a bit focusing

on Jocasta. We have Janet Van Dyne in here. There's

a fair amount of other. Characters and supporting

characters and one of the things I really like

about it is slot builds a world around Tony Stark

Yep, and I like how he does that. I liked how

he did it with spider -man. I like how the I

Like how the universe is presented And I like

how it is very much a terrific starting on point

for people who haven't read Iron Man I think

it's a really good comic For people who have

read Iron Man, here's some of my issues and I

know I haven't summed up the final issue We'll

save that for later My biggest Problem with it

and especially with this is happens in the final

issue as well I'm not always sure the fun factor

and the Russell Russell. It's a holy cow now

mixing Dean Doctor Who? Alright, let's try this

again. I'm not sure the Robert Downey jr. Asked

Tony Dark necessarily works with some of the

more Serious ideas presented. Yeah, I feel like

there's a tonal ish you here and one of the biggest

things or one of the biggest issues I have is

they present the concept of robotic rights and

Enchant machines, etc, etc And because of the

tone it I don't feel like it works all that well,

and this might be my Star Trek nerd coming out

But we've seen it done better in that with data's

fight for rights for sentient androids and for

other sentient machines like the exo cops Oh

God, how much Star Trek do I have in my brain?

Anyway, and then you've got yeah, apparently

and then you've got both the doctor and to a

lesser extent Vic in CS 9 and the doctor in Voyager

and sort of talking about holographic creation

rights not to mention Moriarty in TNG. My issue

is just that I don't know if it fits with all

the jokiness and I like a lot of the jokiness

so the Tony Stark dating app and how that works

and how that culminates is hilarious and delightful.

I talk a lot actually through the last few months

that Mike you and I have been doing podcasts

I talked about how We did a lot of Batman stuff

and Batman tends to fall into the there's a lot

of grim dark stuff in there Yeah, and it's not

always a lot of fun. Yeah, so I like that. This

is fun It's just I feel like the concept of how

machine Is are treated in the Marvel universe

is something they probably could have raised

in a more serious book Maybe I'm just being nuts

or maybe it's the fact I adore Tom King's run

on vision which you know, takes that idea and

turns it up to 11. Right. Yeah, that was kind

of the vision by way of the stepfather of other

movies, in a way. Yeah. Just a little, I mean,

there's a certain horror movie creep factor to

that run, which was a great story, but, boy.

Yeah, it was. The first issue. Yeah, I just feel

like that there's some, there's, and I know it's

not the focus of this, the focus of... this really

is creating and building a world and There's

not a lot of payoff in this particular trade.

It should be noted. This is only five issues

which man after we did Stephanie Brown One and

it was 12. Yeah, this was short Yeah, but there's

not a lot of payoff here. There's an awful lot

of setup, which I think is a bit of a downer

but that's more of an issue with The fact that

writers and arcs are now sort of split into trades

like there's a lot of writers that just they

write with the idea of a trade paperback in mind

and They're writing long -form storytelling and

this is just a beginning So yeah, I like it.

It's just there are some really great ideas mixed

in here that I wish had more room to breathe

There we go. Hey, I finally got to a coherent

thought It only took me rambling for 10 minutes

It's okay. I'm just going to shut my mic off

and take a nap now. Oh, stop it. JT, what did

you think of this first? I mean, do you agree

with Ryan? It's more setup than actual payoff

or? There's definitely a metric butt ton of setup

in here, you know, and building off of stuff

that's come previously, like the, as Ryan mentioned,

this is the, this is actually the second time

in like the last 10 years that they've rebooted

Iron Man like this they had the run post secret

invasion into the dark rain where he went around

deleting his brains so Norman Osborn couldn't

get the files on the superhero registration act

and now this is Tony post civil war two where

he went into this weird cyber coma that he came

out of his body was essentially regrown and oh

that's why we have roadie back because uh roadie

dun got killed by thanos at the beginning of

that particular crossover so it's good to have

the boys back in town like this yeah and then

some sweet marvel hero borrowed his armor for

a couple actually not a marvel hero sorry i never

call him that some marvel psychopath borrowed

his armor for two trades and annihilated an entire

country anyway Yes, but enough about Frank Castle

and his particular hangups But no, I mean, I

love to set all the setup here, you know, it's

built on stuff from previous Iron Man runs, which

is one of the best thing that slot does There

is some things in here. You can see that he's

really kind of leaning into some SJW new type

territory, especially with Jakarta we find out

your costa is living and dating machine man who

has become like a I know super dude. He's like,

well, yes, he's become a super metallic douche

and he's like the When you talk about social

justice where he's there people who do it because

it's the right thing to do and there's a proper

Way to go about this and then there's machine

areas. Yeah, he's like That's machine man to

you meat boy And he's taken off his fake flesh

and his escape, which we'll talk about here.

It's basically a giant VR sort of thing. He's

like, he's going to turn us all into a bunch

of Chuck E. Cheese robot red birthday party bands.

Jakosta, who is going away, he's like, I work

with these people. I love all that setup. The

stuff with the controller, well, you can't really

do it. Decent Iron Man run in my opinion without

using one of the Half lame half badass kind of

villains like the controller because he's kind

of on on paper He's kind of a lame sounding villain

But when you get into when people write them

like when Kurt Busick used them in his run back

in the late 90s after Heroes Reborn He turned

him into like this really creepy sort of like,

you know How can you trust anybody with this

guy out there sort of thing? Who do you trust?

Right, but all in all His first five issues I

you know, I really slots kind of firing on all

cylinders But you know, he has been doing this

thing for ten years like he did with Iron Man.

So he might spider -man, you know spider -man

I meant to say before he came on to Iron Man

and You know as good as he is. He doesn't always

hit a home run. He needs to watch it yeah I mean

like I said for me this is coming in fresh like

the only thing I really read before this which

has nothing to really do with this at all was

the superior iron man short lived series that

we covered you know last week and then four years

ago I love iron man I've wanted to cover the

original the 2014 series I wanted to get those

trades for a while and I just haven't but I've

loved iron man since the 94 animated series Obviously

with our DJ in the driver's seat, you know, for

the MCU and whatever. I think... Well, ha ha

ha. Yeah. Up until, you know... What I love about

it is that I think... Like Ryan was saying, parts

of this world are a little bit too dark, and

that's where the comedy comes in, whether it

works or not. As far as set up, first time new

writer, Dan Slott, new writer to this character,

Dan Slott, comes into this, and I believe that

the first at least four issues, if not the fifth,

world build fairly well. Tony is who we know

him as in the movies and things. RDJ sarcasm

and and quick thing of being the genius like

oh, so let's test this now kind of thing I think

my favorite scene in the entire trade is when

He gets the user to realize what in the VR world

that hey I can just blast myself and make the

game You know game over. I thought that was really

cool I love the art. I love all the covers. Every

cover artist that did a cover for this, I love

it. It's so friggin' cool. I love that they still

use Rhodey's, you know, fear of being in the

coffin or being in the suit kind of thing. I

think that's super cool. I'm glad they're using

it as a fear of being in the suit versus what

they did in the animated series which was, you

know, afraid of being underwater as part of his

fear. Well, he's afraid of dying in the suit

in the cartoon right, right I'm not sure making

the suit bigger helps claustrophobia I'm not

entirely certain. That's how that works. You're

asking for emotional sensitivity in a Marvel

comic That's gonna be an outtake somewhere folks

cuz damn that's a good line. Well, it's no heroes

in crisis eight Shots fired Oh, they are going

to pay for that comic. I have my way. Issue five.

I can tell you how PTSD doesn't work. And that,

oh, anyway. Exactly. Issue five is kind of what

I want to focus on for this episode because issue

five is, it seems like a whole other thing. It

doesn't seem like it ties into. Way makes the

change in artists make sense through absolutely.

I do like God about Arno Yeah, I don't even know

who the hell he was. I didn't know Tony Stark

had a brother. Okay, so about two or no more

like three volumes of Iron Man back and by volumes

I don't mean the trades I mean the specific runs

I think it was just after the heroic age ended

like it was around the time Iron Man was running

around in the black and gold armor for a bit

okay I think after he came back from space he

there was this whole storyline where he found

out that Howard and Maria Stark are not his actual

parents and they did actually have a kid But

it's not Tony. Tony's adopted, and he finds his

stepbrother, basically Arno, who, because of

shenanigans involving Howard Stark and some 50s

Golden Age Marvel characters and take too long

to explain, Arno was born with some sort of autoimmune

deficiency. He has to live in an iron lung. Okay.

And eventually Tony found him, and he got dosed

with extremis and That's why he's up and about

like this now and he does some of the kooky things

he does in this comic. So for those that don't

know their Marvel history, Arno Stark was originally

a future descendant of Tony who came the year

2020 and it's all kind of post -apocalyptic terminatory.

And that's why you see that armor that looks

like half Iron Monger and half Iron Man armor

on Issue fives cover. That's essentially what

that Arnold Starks armor looked like right? Which

I thought was a really cool nod to Iron Man history,

but yeah aren't and Pony did eventually find

his real parents Who you do end up meeting in

these first few issues here? Like you need his

mom who was a character in the last room and

But yeah, I agree with Ryan the switch an artist

for this fifth issue was really Kind of cool,

and I think it was the art in the way Arnold's

written this I got subtle Hannibal Lectorish

vibes off of this this presentation of Arno yeah

what I don't understand is why it had to be like

you know you guys are talking earlier about social

justice and this that and the other thing and

whatever and this to me is like a vegetarian's

dream come true issue because they're trying

not to kill and eat the meat. This issue freaked

me out. I don't think it's really a vegetarian

thing. It has, and they mention it in issue five,

it's more Arno's feelings of being trapped and

not being able to feel. Right. Being trapped

in the iron lung and then these mutant brainless

cows that remind me of some characters I've seen

in an episode of Doctor Who for some reason.

All they do is feel like there's no mind but

there's muscles and nerve endings so all they

do is feel and somehow it turns into like a weird

cannibal horror movie by the end of this issue

where the mutant cows revolt and start devouring

all the people that ate their beef. Yeah. I don't

know if that was blood in the one panel that

you see splashed around Arno or if that was just

a shit ton of barbecue sauce. Why not both? Well

played. Well played. Bloody barbecue sauce. No,

thank you. Yeah, like we've said, I enjoyed...

The first four, the last one kind of threw me

for a loop and it was a little bit on the gross

side for me but I got through it. I like introducing

like a character from the future kind of thing

and I think that's pretty cool. I'm interested

to see where it goes. This isn't a series that

I would stop reading because I love, like as

we've said throughout this whole show, what Dan

did with Spider -Man and I'm really loving what

he's doing with Iron Man. Um, so it's going to

be interesting to see what comes next in issues

six through 11 for, I said this to Ryan before

you got on the, got on the show, JT, I'm like,

Oh, Hey, look, they're using the stark realities

title again. Cause we just finished that with

superior. I think there's some. One criticism

some people had of how they did well essentially

with spider -man later on Peter Parker was Tony

Stark and so because of that there's a Little

bit of familiarity with this do you but overall

I know it's a fun solid starting on going for

Don't talk and Mike jeez for Spider -man is a

good one. It's way more funny. Anyway, Iron Man

is a good carrot Victor I said Iron Man not spider

-man cheese Iron Man's a good character, but

he does not have the best track record for comics

for every Demon in a bottle storyline. There's

about 12 Iron Man replaced by teenage Iron Man

in onslaught Saga or or Iron Man's armor tries

to have sexual intercourse with him while trapped

on a desert island or Don't really feel like

going on. Oh wait. No, let's do one more or iron

man becomes a complete asshole in Civil War for

no reason and then they have to retcon it that

at the armor was partially controlling him and

Anyway, I thought he just did that because he

isn't feels incredibly guilty. No, they retconned

it He didn't have any reason to feel guilty in

the comics. That's part of the problem. It worked

in the films because he did have reason. In the

comics, pretty much everybody has created some

sort of robot killing machine or something at

some point, as was pointed out to him. So, yeah.

Now, the one thing... He's had a rough history.

Oh, yeah. God, yes. The one thing about Slot's

run on Spider -Man versus the beginnings of his

run here on Iron Man that... Don't take offense

to but I can see why some people are complaining

about you know, the slot method is Slot came

on. He's a huge fan of Spider -man. He came on

at the right time like post one more day because

dear lord, that was a retarded idea and He Managed

you know, it's it's a term that my co -host Ben

on the comic consters podcast uses you can't

polish a turd goddamn slot Found a way like he

managed to polish the turd that was spider -man

at the time and you know He built on he went

back into history. He brought back old Supporting

characters. He created new supporting characters.

He used classic villains in some pretty inventive

ways I mean the way he resurrected Craven so

that now he can only die by spider -man's hand

and a willful act of murder at that kind of made

the character really interesting again, but he's

not with here Slot isn't coming in after the

With any black hole sucking all the joy out of

Iron Man like Iron Man Many times as the title

has been rebooted in the last ten years since

Civil War is Still vastly entertaining. I do

take umbra trick people to call Iron Man a B

list Marvel hero because that dudes a list if

anything and I think he might be trying a little

too hard to Too fast with all the stuff that

he's with all that setup is you know, there is

almost way too much setup I'm good with a lot

of setup, but I can see why Some people might

not appreciate that. Yeah, I Appreciated it again

new writer new series Let like like you just

said it isn't like he's trying to replace Tom

Taylor and do superior Iron Man issue 10 It's

a whole new series. It's Whole new iron man.

It's a whole new series of iron man stories like

I think they're up to I don't even know issue

15 16 say I don't know what they're up to now

But like I'm very excited to be reading this

This first one zero to five. I'd probably give

it a three three and a half Mainly because it's

still New it's still fresh. It's still he's still

finding his footing with the character. I think

he's got the comedy parts down and he's got some

of the serious parts down but I think Tony needs

to something has to happen where it affects Tony

and I don't think that happened here yet. Now

they build to it in the you know oncoming issues

like once you get into the big storyline with

the escape and You know, the revelation of the

controller. Controlling Bethany Cable. That's

a character when I read that first issue and

he seen, OK, they bring back another Tony Stark's

ex ex girlfriends. The only one that I've really

there's only really two in the pantheon. And

you can say that because Tony Stark has got a

little black book and almost as big as Nightwings

or Daredevils. The only two girlfriends Tony

Stark's ever had that I really cared for was

I think it's Rumiko Fujikawa who's the Japanese

company that bought Iron Man's so like Stark

Enterprises when they the heroes went missing

after the onslaught And Bethany because Bethany

there was written as this, you know strong assertive

woman. She's basically the Sarah Connor in this

universe And I like it whenever they've managed

to a writer finds a way to bring her back into

the comic and from that first issue with Fin

Fang Foom If you just try Ryan, you can do it.

It's okay. Leave him alone. I believe in you

It's gentle ribbing Mike. I'm not trying to twist

the knife. I know but with the with Old foam

there the one thing I love. Okay, first of all

Kaiju battle with Iron Man cuz who doesn't love

a giant monster fight and the design of the Fin

Fang boom buster armor is very reminiscent of

Did you guys ever read the original Marvel manga

verse comics? No, I didn't Ryan Ryan reads everything

Yeah, so just you know Mike in the early odds

I think it's like oh two oh three more like when

Marvel and DC used to do fifth week events where

you would have a mini series These you would

have some tie -in one shots and it didn't really

intrude too much into the normal comics this

was a world where everything was It was Marvel

characters, but like Tony Stark is like a female

Tony who's taken over for like, you know, Tony

Tony That Tony is turned into a talking head

and the Avengers are essentially this Power Rangers

talk tokusatsu esque Team of superheroes who

their vehicles, you know, you know combine together

and become a giant Mecha Iron Man armor and I

kind of I had very fond memories of that when

I saw the design of the Fin Fang Foom Buster

here in this first issue. And also anytime Iron

Man fights a giant dragon, because it's a knight

in shining armor versus a dragon, what's not

to love about that? Exactly. I'll be interested

to see what kind of twists or what kind of takes

Dan Slott has on other classic Iron Man villains.

I know Iron Man doesn't have the biggest rogues

gallery, but he has some good ones. Sorry, you

go, Ryan. No, I was just gonna say, for the same

reasons I said earlier, it's a three out of five

for me. But yeah, I'm definitely curious, like

Mike was saying, I'm curious to see where it

goes, especially with all the setup. Slot overall

is a good writer. This is a much better version

of Tony Stark than the semi -disasterous She

-Hulk run with him. Oh, jeez. Why do I keep remembering

bad comps? You keep remembering bad comps. You

mean where I skin darted She -Hulk and took away

her strength? Yeah, there's a variety of not

good storylines in that. Uh, anyway. You keep

bringing up these ideas and I just keep filing

them away to surprise you at a later date. Yeah,

why don't we just do a show on the onslaught

saga? People love that. Ugh. Anyway. You can

make an argument that it's an enjoyable event.

it's a hell of a lot easier to follow than a

certain saga involving genetic duplicates of

a certain wall crawler yeah i feel like that

would be a good discussion what's worse ultimatum

onslaught or the clone saga ultimatum not even

a question yeah they're all pretty disasters

any storyline that involves the blob from x -men

cannibalistically eating the wasp is automatically

the worst storyline Now you're sure that was

the worst part of that anyway, but really really

really really really really really love clones

Wasn't wasn't a big fan of the redone clone saw

guy there for that matter. Hey You know solid

and Clone conspiracy. Oh and that terrible final

line Oh, it's just a little scarlet. Oh, jeez.

I haven't wrote that. Did Vince McMahon write

that for John Moxley? I think so. It was suffering

succotash level bad. Anyway, so now it's three

out of five. It's a really good start. It's without

the payoffs and that sort of thing. It's hard

for me to give it a higher score. And the art

is very good overall. It's not perfect. And it's

a jarring art change, but it's also a jarring

tonal change. So yeah, it made sense made sense

Yeah, so we will be reading this in the future

folks it will be covered at some point I think

volume two for trade releases later this month

in June So who knows maybe it'll show up in September

or something on the podcast. I don't know Coming

up next week movie revolt Dan joins me to talk

about Scotty Young's I hate fairyland volume

for the final story at least as far as I can

tell for now For Gert and Larry and all the I

hate fairyland characters, so that's coming up

next week. Where can the people find you online

JT? You can find me online every so often on

the comic con There's podcast whenever we managed

to get together to record me Ben Carver and red

ink sometimes we agree about comics most of the

time we don't and You can also find me on the

social medias at JT from Saskatoon. What about

you, Ryan? I'm on like every show you do Well,

yeah, I didn't ask you what you're doing next

week at night being on Twitter today. I'm posting

dank smash mouth memes and Yeah Mostly just reading

comics. So I passed 600 trades this weekend,

which is alarming. But on the other hand, and

I continue to be amazed at the quality. So yesterday

there was a Twitter hashtag trending, thanks

to Gail Simone, of comics that made me cry. And

I looked through people's posts, that kind of

thing. Good God, the industry is in... Fantastic

shape in terms of quality right now because so

much of it was recent stuff right and then be

a lot of it is stuff that's still ongoing and

When I stand around I look at my collection It's

been a while since I've had a chance to go back

and start collecting quote -unquote Classics

or older stuff. I've been pretty concentrated

on new stuff and series that are just starting

out lately And then I talk to people like Jesse,

and I've got like a hundred different series

to recommend to him that are new, be it indie

stuff or stuff. I don't want to say reboots because

they haven't done, despite what we just talked

about today, they haven't done a whole lot of

rebooting lately in the big two, but still a

lot of stuff like that. Like I recommended Jesse

start with cord of vowels, for example. Yeah.

For Batman, which is, again, like a fantastic

recent run. It's ridiculous the amount of quality

and good writers right now. Just like what I

said about Tom King. He's amazing. Slots hit

and miss. You know, whatever. I could talk for

about an hour and list people. Aaron's always

on. Kelly Sue DeConnick's always on. Margaret

Scott, that kind of thing. Brian K. Vaughan is

probably the best writer in comics consistently.

He doesn't have a series I don't recommend people

read. It's kind of interesting going back through

some of the things that I eventually want to

cover on the show that are old, like the new

52 Supergirl run, and how that was written by

Mike Johnson. And I'm like, where's that guy

now? Well, some people moved on. Right. Some

people are doing different things and that kind

of thing. It's Amazing to me some of the people

who have been writing like consistently without

breaks like Tana has a code Black Panther has

been amazing since he took over and then I look

at how many years it's been now I Don't think

it's a coincidence that the Marvel version on

screen bears amazing resemblance to him and the

versions of the characters he introduced And

his run on cap America right now is you know

top -notch I haven't picked it up yet. I'm behind

on trade somewhat so The so the news of the day

or the news of the week as we record this episode

even though this episode will be out After this

has already been revealed Tom be long is leaving

IDW as its its letterer. He's going on to do

other things and whatever so, you know Good luck

on future endeavors to Tom, but Tom's letters

in the IDW books, the Transformers books, oh

man. His lettering in More Than Meets the Eye

was so good that essentially forced me to realize

how important lettering is to a comic and to

blocking and layout and that sort of thing. We

talked about it whenever we reviewed the series.

The number of characters, and the way he was

able to use the blocking, the type, the font,

the coloring, everything in his lettering, and

how it gave them particular voices is still amazing

to me. You're talking about a series and a franchise

that has literally hundreds of characters. It

wasn't just Roberts and Barber etc and their

writing that gave them different voices. It was

his work Yeah, it was Tom's work on the lettering

and you know again letters. I don't know if this

is Part of the artists or part of the letter

like letters or artists just like everybody else's

anchor You know some pencil or whatever. They're

all artists Like I've talked about several times

when we've talked about like bad girl and stuff

and how most of the time When it's Barbara Gordon

Batgirl, it's like the purple background with

the yellow letters and that kind of thing or

whatever, like the color scheme of it all. I

don't know if that's Tom that does that, or if

that's whomever else that says, hey, do it like

this, Tom, or do it like that, Tom, so you can

distinguish characters. Just amazing, amazing

work. Yeah. And like I said, it took one... I

think he's the best I've ever seen. It took just

an amazing... person at it It's For me to realize

how important it actually is in comics. I never

notice when it's off or when it's not as good

and That is impressive, especially considering

how long I've read comics were also he highly

recommends and talks about the expanse on his

Twitter feed Which is another plus 20 points,

so there you go I am at TFG1 Mike on Twitter,

TFG2 Mike on Facebook, follow at GeekCastRadio

on Twitter, at The Pull Bag, all that other good

stuff. As I mentioned earlier, next week we've

got I Hate Fairyland Vol. 4, later on in the

month we've got Turtles and then Transformers,

so a full month of variety with no Batman in

sight. Yet. Dear God, Mike, how will you survive?

Oh, I'll be alright. Make your greatest game

in the comics and we will catch you next time

here inside the pull bag Jarvis Hey all wrapped

up here, sir. Will there be anything else? You

know what to do You've just heard the latest

episode of the pull bag the GCR ends first comic

review and discussion podcast There are several

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Radio. So until next time, make your great escape

into comics and unleash the geek in you. You're

like a good penny on one bad day Yeah, wow that

didn't sound like a backhanded compliment at

all no, it's it's a Batman joke you idiot Because

of the giant penny in the Batcave and then never

you probably should have just stopped while you're

in behind I know right And Saskatoon Ian's just

don't get it sometimes